How Much Does It Cost To Build a Chat App Like Arattai?

Remember Arattai? That messaging app from India that basically exploded overnight – hitting 10 million downloads faster than anyone expected, with daily sign-ups jumping 100 times over. Now businesses everywhere are asking themselves: what would it actually cost to build an App like Arattai?

Here’s the thing – you’re looking at anywhere between $40,000 and $400,000. We know, that’s a huge range! But the Arattai app development cost really depends on what you want. Are you thinking of a straightforward chat app, or do you need something packed with bells and whistles? Your feature list and how complex you want to get will make all the difference in what you end up spending.

So in this blog, I’m going to break down what actually drives these costs when you’re building a messaging app like Arattai. We’ll look at everything – the design phase, development work, and yes, even the ongoing maintenance after launch. By the end, you’ll have a much better sense of what you’re getting into if you decide to build an app like Arattai.

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What Is Arattai and Why Are Businesses Building Similar Messaging Apps

Arattai, created by Zoho Corporation, is an Indian-developed messaging app that has rapidly made headlines for its novel features and swift expansion. Introduced in 2021, Arattai presents an array of functionalities that position it as a viable competitor in the messaging app market:

• Multimedia Sharing: You can send text messages, voice recordings, pictures, videos, and documents – essentially everything you might need for multi-purpose communication.
• Voice and Video Calling: The application supports voice and video calls, providing users with a full experience.
• Stories and Channels: As on other mainstream platforms, users can post stories and build channels, adding a social networking dimension to the application.
• Cross-Platform Support: Arattai is available on Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, Linux, and watchOS, making it accessible from nearly any device.

Market Performance

Arattai has recorded strong growth since its release. Here are a few stats that document its development in the market:

• User Base: The app has reached over 10 million downloads, indicating robust user adoption.
• Daily Sign-Ups: At the end of September 2025, daily sign-ups rose from 3,000 to 350,000 within three days – a 100x jump.
• App Store Ranking: Arattai initially topped Apple’s App Store in India, even outpacing an app like WhatsApp as a top social networking app.

Arattai’s growth in the market is a testament to the potential of modern social networking platforms. See how we developed Avatus, an avatar-based social networking platform, and how it is shaping the future of social media.

Key Features and Technologies

Arattai is equipped with features and technologies that make it attractive.

Here is a quick overview:

• Real-Time Messaging: Messages are sent in real time, ensuring smooth, seamless communication.
• Secure Calls: Voice and video calls use end-to-end encryption, a core security feature of the Arattai app that protects user conversations.
• User Interface: The application features an easy-to-use design that facilitates navigation and the use of its functionality.
• Native Tech Stack: Arattai operates on Zoho’s native infrastructure rather than relying on third-party cloud services like AWS or Azure. This allows them to have more control over performance and data confidentiality.
• Scalability: As the user base is increasing rapidly, Zoho has been scaling its infrastructure to meet growing demand.

The benefits of an app like Arattai—including user-centric features, meteoric growth potential, and a robust privacy commitment—have positioned it as an important player in the messaging app space.

How Much Does It Cost to Build an App Like Arattai in 2026

Creating an app such as Arattai isn’t a catch-all scenario – expenses fluctuate based on what you are trying to produce, how complicated you wish to make it with features, and what pieces of development you’re doing yourself.

Each step, from planning sessions all the way through to sustaining your app months after the release,e adds up to what you’ll be paying. And don’t forget, your final cost is determined by where you source your developers, whether you’re building for a few hundred individuals or plan to scale to millions.

A. Detailed Breakdown of the Costs According to Complexity Levels

How much you’re going to have to pay to build a chat app like Arattai depends a lot on what features you want and how complicated the whole thing has to be.

Let’s take three levels of sophistication:

Basic App:

Think of this as a plain chat app – you have text messaging, photo sharing, and push notifications. At this level, the cost to build an App like Arattai starts at the lower end of the spectrum. Not a lot of bells and whistles, but it’ll do.

• Cost Estimate: $40,000 to $60,000
• Features: Real-time text messaging, media upload and delivery pipelines, push notification services, and secure user authentication workflows.
• Development Time: 3 to 6 months.

Advanced App:

We’re referring here to a step up in voice/video calling, group chats, and more advanced multimedia sharing capabilities, which significantly impact the chat app development cost, like Arattai.

• Cost Estimate: $60,000 to $150,000
• Features: Low-latency voice and video calling using real-time communication protocols, scalable group messaging architecture, and end-to-end encrypted message delivery.
• Development Time: 6 to 9 months.

Enterprise-Level App:

This is the complete work – a customized, heavy-duty application that will handle millions of customers without even breaking a sweat. You get top-of-the-line features, integration with other services, and heavy-duty security. This premium tier represents the highest cost bracket for Arattai app development.

• Cost Estimate: $150,000 to $400,000
• Features: Enterprise-grade encryption and key management, Generative AI-enabled messaging and conversation intelligence, custom system integrations, and horizontally scalable cloud-native infrastructure.
• Development Time: 9 to 12 months.

You notice that the price increases as you add features, improve security, and build something that can scale with your users.

Here is a quick overview table of the development costs:

B. Cost Breakdown by Development Phases

The development of a chat app like Arattai has multiple stages, each of which contributes to the overall cost.

Here’s how the cost typically breaks down:

1. Planning

This is where you start – you’re brainstorming, researching, and outlining your game plan. You’re going to be spending on consultations, defining your market, and identifying just what your app needs to do.

Estimated Cost: $5,000 to $15,000

2. Design

Good UI/UX design will make or break your app if users stick around. This phase includes wireframing, sketching, prototyping, and polishing the interface until it looks and feels good.

Estimated Cost: $10,000 to $25,000

3. Development

This is where all the heavy lifting happens – coding everything, bug hunting, and testing till it’s done. This step normally takes the longest and eats up most of your budget.

Estimated Cost: $25,000 to $150,000 (complexity dependent)

4. Launch

Your moment to launch your app to the world. This is your marketing campaigns and promotions, with everything set up and approved on the app stores.

Estimated Cost: $5,000 to $15,000

5. Maintenance

Your job does not stop after the app has been launched. You’ll be releasing updates, stomping out new bugs, fixing security vulnerabilities, and keeping your servers healthy.

Approximate Price: $5,000 to $20,000 (annually)

All of these add up to your total cost to build an App like Arattai, and it goes up or down depending on how complex you want your app to be and what features you simply must have.

Here is a quick overview table:

C. Breakup of the Costs by Regions

Geography also comes into play when determining the cost to build a chat app like Arattai. Programmer rates vary widely by geography.

Here is how much it will cost to build an app like Arattai in different regions:

1. United States

American programmers typically charge between $100 and $200 per hour, placing the US at the high end of the scale.

Total Development Cost: $150,000 to 400,000

2. Eastern Europe (Ukraine, Poland, etc.)

Discover developers here charging $40 to $80 an hour – so much cheaper yet producing quality work.

Total Development Cost: $80,000 to $200,000

3. India

Indian developers are among the cheapest in the world, usually between $20 and $50 per hour.

Total Development Cost: $40,000 to $120,000

These local price differences illustrate how much your chosen location can affect your finances and project timeline.

Here is a quick overview table:

D. Overview of How to Estimate the Costs

Need a cost breakdown of the Arattai app development? You have a few moving pieces to consider: how complex your app is, your dev team’s location, and the features you’re including.

Here’s a basic formula that will serve you:

Cost Estimate = (Development Hours) x (Hourly Rate) + (Additional Costs for Design, Launch, Maintenance)

Let’s walk through an example:

Assuming your app takes 1,000 hours to develop and you’re paying $50/hour on average, you’re already at $50,000 for the basic development.

But there’s more to it – you need to add what you’re laying out on design person-hours, launch charges, and sustaining it to put the whole picture together about how much this project would run.

E. Overview of Time and Effort Estimates

Development times vary widely depending on the kind of app you’re building.

Here’s about what you’re in for:

• Basic App: You can plan on 3 to 6 months, though this varies based on your feature set and the complexity of your design needs.
• Advanced App: When you’re adding voice/video calling, group messaging, and other high-end features, you’re probably looking at 6 to 9 months of development.
• Enterprise-Level App: Building something at enterprise scale – with complex integrations and the infrastructure to support huge growth – would cost you 9 to 12 months, or longer.

The longer you’re in development, the more you’ll pay for the Arattai app development because you’re wasting more resources and iterating more times through testing to try and get everything right.

What Factors Most Influence the Cost of Building a Chat App Like Arattai

Building a chat app like Arattai involves multiple factors that affect the cost of developing it. Each element of the app, from its design and backend infrastructure to its security features and platform selection, impacts the overall development cost.

Let’s explore how each of these factors contributes to the Arattai app development cost:

1. Complexity of Design

Design is a major contributor to the cost of creating a chat app like Arattai. A plain, template-based design is cheaper compared to a custom UI/UX. Arattai-style apps, with seamless interaction and customized appearance, need precise planning, testing, and iteration, which adds expense.

Major features such as real-time messaging and multimedia sharing require a customized design to deliver seamless functionality across platforms.

2. Complexity of Backend Development

Backend complexity has a significant impact on costs. Simple messaging applications require straightforward backend services, but voice/video calls, real-time updates, and media sharing are present in applications like Arattai, so a more complex backend is required.

Further costs are incurred while developing scalable, secure infrastructure and selecting good hosting services. Mobile app backend development architecture choices can account for 30-40% of the total Arattai app development cost.

3. Third-party Integrations

Third-party functionalities like payment gateways, social media authentication, or GPS contribute to development expenses. Integrating each one requires extra setup time, testing, and ongoing maintenance. Each service is valuable but more expensive with more integrations, which must be planned and developed judiciously.  These integration costs are an often-overlooked component of the cost to build an App like Arattai.

4. Security Measures

Security decisions show up quickly once real users and real data are involved. Requirements go well beyond basic encryption and closely mirror regulatory expectations. Messaging platforms must support end-to-end encryption, region-aware key management, strong identity controls, and detailed audit logging.

Secure device authentication, ongoing monitoring, penetration testing, and incident response planning are now baseline expectations. These layers increase infrastructure and operational effort and have a direct impact on the cost of creating a chat app like Arattai as it scales.

5. Compliance Measures

You feel this early, usually when legal joins the first product call. Compliance shapes both architecture and long-term operating costs for a chat app like Arattai. Regulations such as GDPR, CCPA and CPRA, and India’s DPDP Act introduce region-specific rules around data collection, consent, storage, access, and retention.

If your app operates across borders, you need regional data residency support, configurable consent flows, audit logs, and clear data access or deletion processes. All of this adds visible effort to the cost of building a chat app like Arattai, but it plays a critical role in lowering regulatory exposure and maintaining user trust.

6. Platform Selection

Selecting to develop for iOS, Android, or the Web has cost implications. Native apps on both platforms entail different development efforts, hence more expense. Cross-platform solutions such as React Native or Flutter help reduce costs but may sacrifice performance in certain cases. Platform selection influences development time and overall chat app development cost, as in Arattai.

7. Technologies Used

Technology choices influence more than features. They affect compliance readiness, scalability, and ongoing operating costs. Capabilities like Generative AI in messaging, real-time communication, and automation demand specialized infrastructure, governance controls, and monitoring.

AI-driven workflows must align with data protection and automated processing rules across regions, adding architectural complexity. While advanced technologies improve differentiation and user experience, they also raise long-term maintenance and performance optimization demands.

Also Read: 5 Technologies Taking Social Media Towards Its Next Evolution Set

Which Features Are Essential When Building an App Similar to Arattai

Each feature you choose to add to your chat application has a direct bearing on its cost, performance, and the experience users receive. Understanding the key features of an app like Arattai helps you prioritize what matters most for your target audience.

This section takes you through the fundamental and advanced features that constitute an up-to-date messaging platform and demonstrates how each influences the overall cost of building a chat application similar to Arattai.

A. Basic Features

These elements are the foundation of any messaging application. They make things work as they should, safe and reliable, while keeping your development costs in check.

• Messaging: Allows users to send and receive messages immediately, which is really the core of how individuals engage with the application.
• Multimedia Sharing: Provides users with a feature to share photos, videos, and documents so conversations feel more natural and expressive.
• User Authentication: Provides secure methods for individuals to log in and register using their phone number, email address, or social media credentials.
• Push Notifications: Ensure users are kept up to date with instant notifications for new messages, mentions, or missed calls.
• Contact Sync: Facilitates onboarding by importing contacts from the device and indicating which friends are already in the app.

These fundamental features get your application up and going for users. They aren’t very costly to develop compared to other things, but you do need strong backend infrastructure and careful planning to ensure everything runs seamlessly.

B. Advanced Features

Advanced features are what make a plain messaging app into something that can actually hold its ground in the market. But here’s the thing: every feature you include comes with new complexities and expenses.

• Voice and Video Calling: This requires advanced communication technology and robust server infrastructure to keep calls crisp and free from lag.
• Group Chats: These cause scaling issues because you want messages to sync instantly for every group member.
• File Sharing: Requires more storage capacity, additional security for dealing with documents, and rapid transfer protocols.
• Advanced Encryption: Establishes end-to-end encryption for both private and group conversations, securing user data and helping you comply with regulations.
• Bots and Automations: After core messaging is in place, bots and automations help reduce manual effort and improve everyday usage. With Generative AI, they move beyond basic replies and support more intelligent interactions.
  • Group chat summaries and key highlights
  • Smart responses and Q and A from chat history
  • Workflow automations and contextual notifications
  • Ongoing monitoring and tuning for reliability

These features add value while increasing technical complexity that needs to be planned early.

Having these features implies more time and resources required to achieve something. They have a significant impact on the cost to build an App like Arattai, especially when you are creating something that has to scale up and behave like an enterprise application.

Arattai’s use of real-time messaging and secure calls showcases the power of modern tech stacks. Explore how we developed Vyrb, which leverages similar technologies to deliver a unique social media experience.

What Hidden Costs Should Businesses Plan for When Building a Messaging App

Most companies budget for design and development, but they don’t factor in the recurring, long-term costs that truly keep the app alive and on its toes.

These hidden expenses, such as maintenance, hosting, marketing, and legal costs, become crucial for keeping a chat app like Arattai in working condition after you launch it.

1. App Maintenance

Once your app is released, you require constant maintenance to keep it secure, stable, and properly functioning alongside system updates. Sending out periodic patches, enhancing performance, and implementing new features are all necessary to retain your users.

For a messaging app like Arattai, you’re also concerned with scaling infrastructure up and ensuring the app remains online without interruption, which adds to these recurring costs. Typically, you are seeing maintenance costing you around 15-25% of your initial development investment annually.

Also Read: What is the Cost of Maintaining an App in 2025?

2. App Hosting

Hosting drives real-time messaging and cloud storage and keeps them all functioning. A chat app requires servers capable of handling thousands of individuals joining at once and keeping it responsive and fast. How much you pay depends on the number of users you have, the bandwidth you consume, and the storage you need.

You’ll spend an average of $500 to $2,000 per month on hosting, on average, and that only increases as more users begin using your application.

3. App Promotion and Marketing

Having a wonderful app is just half the challenge, since you now need people to discover and install it. Marketing expenses include app store optimization, executing social media campaigns, managing PR, and managing influencer partnerships.

Simply launching the app can cost you anywhere from $5,000 to $50,000, depending on how large you’re going and which markets you’re entering. And you can’t leave it at that, because continuous marketing is what keeps bringing in new users and keeps your brand face-out there.

4. Legal and Licensing Fees

Each messaging app is required to comply with data privacy regulations and industry requirements, which is expensive. You must pay for writing terms of service, privacy policies, and user agreements, and receive legal counsel on how to comply with GDPR or CCPA regulations.

Some companies also pay for licenses or intellectual property protection, adding another $3,000 to $10,000 to what you’re already paying.

Here is a quick overview table:

How Can Companies Reduce the Cost of Developing an App Like Arattai

Developing a messaging app like Arattai doesn’t necessarily mean draining your bank account from the get-go. With careful planning and sound decision-making during implementation, you can significantly reduce overall expenses.

Here are some realistic methods companies can use to keep the Arattai app development expense in check without compromising quality.

1. Creating an MVP

A Minimum Viable Product, or MVP, focuses only on the bare minimum of features, allowing you to experiment with your concept without investing a lot of money in a full version. By releasing a minimum version with central functions such as messaging and sharing multimedia files, you can start gathering user feedback at the outset.

This approach reduces the cost of building a chat app like Arattai, accelerates development, and helps you determine which high-end features are actually necessary to include before you begin scaling.

Learn more about the cost to build an MVP for your project.

2. Prioritizing Essential Features

One of the main reasons budgets get out of hand is feature creep, which occurs when you try to pack in too many features initially. Staying with the actual things that your users really need for the initial release helps keep both development and maintenance costs in check.

Start with the essentials, such as secure messaging, sharing media, and auth, then introduce the more glitzy features, such as video calling or AI bots, down the line once more users begin to use your app.

3. Taking advantage of Cross-Platform Development

When you build separately for iOS and Android, you’re essentially duplicating the effort and spending twice. Using a cross-platform framework such as Flutter or React Native allows developers to reuse most of the code across platforms.

This reduces development time, keeps maintenance easy, and delivers your app to customers sooner without sacrificing a user-friendly experience.

4. Outsourcing to Cost-Effective Regions

Having developers from countries with lower costs, such as India or Eastern Europe, brings your costs down considerably while you continue to receive high-quality work. Development here can cost 40 to 60% less than in the US or Western Europe.

By using a seasoned international company like Appinventiv, you receive clear communication, budget-friendly pricing, and on-time projects, all while keeping your budget intact.

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What Are the Key Steps to Build a Chat App Like Arattai from Scratch

Creating a chat app similar to Arattai requires following specific steps to develop an app like Arattai, bringing an idea from inception to deployment. Every step contributes to the app’s usability, scalability, and enduring success.

1. Ideation and Research

Begin by defining the app’s purpose, audience, and unique selling point. This process involves market research and competitor benchmarking to establish gaps your app can address.

2. Wireframing and Design

Then, designers make wireframes and user flows to conceptualize the experience. This establishes a clear structure before development and ensures the interface is intuitive.

3. Development

The process of Arattai app development involves implementing both the frontend (what the user sees) and backend (where the data gets processed). For a chat application, this means messaging, notifications, and real-time data syncing.

4. Testing

Thorough testing verifies app performance, usability, and security. Pre-launch bug fixing minimizes future expenses and guarantees a stable product.

5. Launch and Support

The app is released into app stores after testing. Regular updates, feature updates, and user support following launch ensure ongoing usage and reliability.

How Can Businesses Build a Messaging App Better Than Arattai

Although Arattai has laid a solid foundation for secure and easy-to-use messaging, there is always room to innovate. By enhancing the design, adding intelligent features, and employing the latest technologies, companies can create a chat app that not only matches but actually outdoes Arattai in experience and functionality.

1. UI/UX

User experience and interface are what keep users coming back. A polished layout with clean navigation, quick-loading screens, and personal touches can differentiate your app. Adding accessibility features, dark mode options, and customizable themes further enhances usability. The idea is to make every interaction easy and delightful.

2. Features

To beat Arattai, think of including features that extend beyond traditional messaging. These may be chat suggestions through AI, voice-to-text messaging, smart notifications, or even real-time translation. Cloud storage and productivity tool integrations can also make the app more useful to business users and increase its overall market value.

3. Technologies

The use of the most advanced tech stack improves performance, scalability, and security. The integration of AI for individualization, blockchain for data validity, and edge computing for quicker response times has the potential to revolutionize the user experience. Stronger encryption protocols, sophisticated analysis, and AI-powered predictive maintenance also help ensure trust and efficiency.

How Do Messaging Apps Like Arattai Generate Revenue

Learning how apps such as Arattai generate revenue is important when you’re planning to create your own chat app. Arattai currently doesn’t have a revenue model, but considering various revenue models for messaging apps helps you prepare for your app’s financials.

A. Revenue Model of the App

There are no Aratti app monetization strategies because it is completely free, and Zoho (which operates it) hasn’t announced any intention to begin charging users or generating revenue from it in the near future.

Their immediate focus appears to be signing up as many users as possible and growing the platform first.

That being said, most business models for Arattai app eventually include some combination of these tactics:

• Ads: Placing ads in the middle of the app, whether banner ads or video ads. Many free apps do this, although it can get on people’s nerves if there are too many.
• Premium Subscriptions: Charging users for premium features such as more space, superior security options, or special content that free users cannot access.
• B2B Integrations: If the app resonates with businesses, there’s scope to sell enterprise plans that include custom-branded options or analytics boards.

Also Read: App Monetization Guide: 7 Strategies and Models Overview

B. Other Monetization Strategies

There are a multitude of other methods through which messaging apps can make money beyond the usual culprits:

• In-App Purchases: Selling entertaining extras such as custom emoji packs, sticker collections, or additional storage for individuals looking to spice up their experience.
• Enterprise Solutions: Creating tailored versions for companies requiring internal communication systems or chatbots for customer support.
• Affiliate Marketing: Collaborating with brands or services and earning money when users click on recommendations or affiliate links within the app.

Arattai hasn’t pursued any of these avenues yet, but seeing what’s profitable for other apps puts something in your mind when it comes time to decide how your own app will ultimately make money.

Also Read: How Do Apps Make Money: Strategies to Boost Your Revenue Potential

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Why Should You Partner With an Experienced App Development Company for Arattai-Like Apps

Creating an app like Arattai requires thoughtful planning, selecting the correct features, and truly knowing where your investment is going. Each decision you make from conception through release impacts how well your app functions, whether it will scale, and the cost to build an App like Aratta in the end.

Having a trustworthy development firm, such as Appinventiv, helps you manage these issues without being swamped. Appinventiv has built successful apps like MOXY, which received 10K+ mobile app downloads within the first few weeks, Vyrb with 50K+ downloads, and AVATUS, elevating its digital infrastructure to new heights of security and efficiency.

Appinventiv has some serious social media app development services, with expertise in scalable, secure chat apps that won’t break the bank. We have a good track record and are passionate about crafting awesome user experiences, which is why we are sure we can help bring your ideas to life.

FAQs

Q. How much does it typically cost to build a messaging app like Arattai?

A. What you’ll ultimately pay to have an app like Arattai built for messaging can vary pretty dramatically based on how complex you want it, what functionality you’re interested in, and where your developers are coming from.

A minimalistic version might run you between $40,000 and $60,000. Voice/video calling or group messaging? Then you’re probably in the $60,000 to $150,000 range. For business apps with all the bells and whistles, prices can range as high as $400,000.

Q. How can I monetize a chat app similar to Arattai?

A. Today, Arattai is free for everyone. Still, most of them monetize through premium subscriptions, where users pay for additional features, show ads to users of the free version, work with companies through B2B deals, and sell in-app items such as stickers or themes. If your target audience is companies, then custom enterprise features can be another monetization stream.

Q. How long does it take to develop an app like Arattai?

A. The timeline differs depending on what kind of app you’re developing. A simple one with standard chat capabilities usually takes 3 to 6 months. Getting voice/video calls involved brings it up to around 6 to 9 months. Building something enterprise-grade with deep integrations and massive scalability? That’s about 9 to 12 months of development.

Q. How does Arattai ensure data privacy and security?

A. Arattai protects chats with end-to-end encryption, so the things you say stay between you and the person you’re conversing with. They also store data securely in the cloud and use good authentication methods to keep unwanted individuals at bay. It’s designed to give users peace of mind regarding their privacy.

Q. What is the ideal Arattai app development tech stack?

A. Your tech stack choices actually do matter here. Most developers use Node.js for backend tasks, WebRTC for video calling, React Native or Flutter for cross-platform apps, and cloud platforms like AWS or Google Cloud for scaling. Security requirements necessitate end-to-end encryption, typically implemented using the AES and TLS protocols.